


Don't Tell Jen!

by eating_custardinbed



Category: IT Crowd
Genre: Cute, Cutesy, Established Relationship, Fluff, Fluffy, M/M, Moss is trying to take care of him, One Shot, Request from my Tumblr, SO MUCH FLUFF, Short, Short & Sweet, Short One Shot, Sick Roy, Sickfic, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, also posted there, chaotic - Freeform, it does not go well
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-22
Updated: 2020-08-22
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:21:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26043403
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eating_custardinbed/pseuds/eating_custardinbed
Summary: Roy is sick, he's at work and he doesn't want Jen to know. Moss tries to help.Yeah, it goes about as well as you'd expect
Relationships: Maurice Moss/Roy Trenneman
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22
Collections: Rare Male Slash Exchange 2020





	Don't Tell Jen!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Big_bunbun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Big_bunbun/gifts).



> this was a request from an anon on tumblr, but i thought i'd post it here too!! pls enjoy 
> 
> btw this is chaotic as fuck and I kinda love it

When Moss walked into the office, he knew it was going to be a strange sort of day. 

Not because Jen wasn’t there yet. That was sort of standard. She was very rarely in before half nine, if not ten. No, if anything the absence of Jen made things feel a little more normal. The office too, had changed very little. 

It was Roy, who was kneeling on the floor and resting his forehead on the cold stone floor. 

Moss paused in taking his jacket off, staring at his boyfriend quizzically. He slipped his jacket off, hanging it up before creeping over to stand next to Roy. He stared down at him for a few seconds before he reached out, shaking Roy’s shoulder gently. 

“I’m fine!” Roy exclaimed as he shot upright, looking around wildly. Moss raised his hands in surrender, watching Roy carefully. He didn’t look too well. He was paler than normal (a feat unto itself), his nose was all red and runny, and he just seemed... ill. Once Roy saw that it was Moss he seemed to relax, slumping down a little. “Jesus, it’s just you.” 

“Are you okay?” Moss asked. Roy fixed him with a look. 

“What do you think, genius?” he said. Moss bit his lip, looking away. The Irishman’s face soften. “Sorry, I’m just... I’m not feeling well.” 

Moss wanted to say something sarcastic, but then he looked at his boyfriend’s face and decided that it probably wasn’t the best idea. Roy sat down, leaning against his desk. He huffed a little, dragging a hand down his face. Moss knelt down in front of him, resting the back of his hand against Roy’s forehead. It was boiling. 

“Why aren’t you at home?” he asked. He tried to fix Roy with the look his mother used to give him when he was ill when he was younger and still wanted to go to school, but he wasn’t sure he did it very well. Roy shook his head, and then winced. 

“Look, I’ve been taking so many sick days when I’ve been hungover or can’t be arsed to come into work,” (at this, Moss gave him a disapproving look) “that if I take one now I’m gonna get fired.” He paused, sighing. He looked up his boyfriend. Moss couldn’t help but notice that his eyes were all bloodshot. “I’ll be fine. Just don’t tell Jen, okay? She’ll force me to go home.” 

“But--” Moss started to say, but Roy cut him off. 

“Please, sweetheart? For me?” 

Well Moss couldn’t say no to that. Ruddy Roy, knowing exactly how to get to him. He nodded. Roy smiled at him. “Thank you.” 

“What if she notices?” Moss asked. Roy made a face. 

“She won’t notice,” he proclaimed. Moss raised one eyebrow. Roy forced himself to stand, staggering over to the kitchenette and squinting at himself in the mirror Jen had insisted on installing in there. He winced at his reflection before stumbling back into the office. “Okay, so she might notice,” he said. 

“What are we going to do?” Moss said. They both fell quiet, putting on their best concentrating faces. After a minute or so, Roy made a triumphant noise. Moss looked up at him excitedly. 

“Blush!” Roy shouted. Moss’ face changed from excited to confused. 

“Blush?” he repeated, tilting his head to the side. Roy nodded with a grin. 

“Y’know, blush!” he said. He paused to turn his head to the side and cough violently into his elbow. “Women put it on their cheeks to make them redder. Maybe it’ll make me look less...” 

“Like a freshly killed corpse?” Moss hazarded. Roy nodded with a shrug. “But where are we supposed to get this blush stuff from?” 

“‘M sure Jen will have some in her office,” Roy said casually. Moss shook his head so hard that his ears began to hurt, feeling a strange sense of panic come over him. 

“No, you can’t take something of Jen’s,” he said. “I took a chocolate bar from her desk drawer once and I thought she was going to have me killed. She’ll know if you’ve been in there, and you know I can’t lie! I’ll tell her and then--” 

“Moss it’s fine,” Roy said, giving his boyfriend a slightly perturbed look. Moss fell silent, but still looked incredibly nervous, biting his lip and folding his arms across his chest. “Alright, we won’t go in Jen’s office. Where are we supposed to get it from?” 

“Maybe Richmond has--” Moss stopped himself, shaking his head. “Stupid suggestion.” 

They were both quiet again. Roy dragged himself around to the other side of his desk, throwing himself down into his chair with a sigh. All of a sudden, Moss made a small squeaking noise and ran into the kitchenette. There was a tremendous crashing and banging as he flung cupboards open and shut, and then he appeared in the doorway, holding a small bottle aloft. 

“What?” Roy breathed, completely baffled. 

“Food colouring!” Moss said proudly. “We’ll put it on your cheeks, it’ll make them seem redder!”

Roy’s face split into a huge grin and he nodded. Once Moss came over to him and sat down on the edge of the desk, he took his boyfriend’s head in his hands and planted a kiss on his forehead. 

“You’re a bloody genius,” he said. Moss blushed. He unscrewed the cap on the food colouring. 

“Ready?” 

Roy nodded. 

***

It took Jen all she had not to laugh when she walked into the office. 

Moss and Roy were both sat at their desks, like normal. Roy had his head bent low, and Moss kept looking over at him. 

“Hiya,” she said, smiling at them both. They looked up at her like deer who had just been startled. Moss, he was normal. But Roy...

His cheeks looked as if a small child had attempted to give him clown makeup with no adult supervision present. Actually, considering how pale the rest of his face was, it really did look like clown makeup. He even had the red nose! She stifled down a giggle, looking down at her shoes. “Alright, Roy?” 

“Yeah, fine,” Roy said. His voice had gone all high-pitched and he had folded his arms, a sure-fire sign he was lying. “Fine. Fine as a fiddle. Or is it fit as a fiddle? Either way, I’m fine!” 

“Okay,” Jen said with a chuckle. Before Roy could embarrass himself further, she turned on her heel and went into her office, closing the door behind her. 

Well, if he got  _ really  _ bad she’d send him home. 

“Thank goodness, I don’t think she noticed,” Moss said with a sigh of relief. Roy nodded, slumping back down on his desk. Moss lowered his voice conspiratorially as he whispered, “how do you feel?” 

“Like I’ve been run over by a ten tonne tractor,” Roy groaned. Moss made a sympathetic noise. 

“Are you  _ sure  _ you don’t want to go home?” he asked. Roy looked up at him slowly, and when Moss noticed the look his boyfriend was giving him he recoiled a little. “Okay then.” 

Everything seemed to be okay until lunchtime. As normal, Jen disappeared at lunchtime, leaving Moss and Roy alone in the office. This had been the standard since the two of them had begun dating. As soon as she left Roy moved straight to the sofa. Moss forced him to eat half a sandwich, but Roy refused to eat any more. 

Unfortunately, it all happened when Jen had got back. 

They were sitting side by side on the sofa, watching some terrible daytime television program, when suddenly Roy began to sway. Moss noticed immediately and gave him a worried look, putting his hand on his boyfriend’s shoulder. 

“Roy?” he murmured. Roy didn’t respond, instead just groaning softly. As he pitched forward, only Moss’ quick instincts saved him from cracking his head open on the corner of the coffee table. “Roy!” Moss hissed, glancing quickly back towards Jen’s office. Thank God, she hadn’t heard a thing. He reached up to feel Roy’s forehead. Even before he touched the skin, he could feel the heat emanating from it. 

Oh this was bad, very bad indeed. There was no thermometer anyway in the office, so there was no way to actually  _ know  _ how bad it was, but if Roy was like this is had to be pretty darn bad. Maybe he should tell Jen? No, Roy would kill him, and they were in such a good place right now... 

He tried to control his panic as he looked wildly around the room, looking for something,  _ anything _ , that could help. His mind was turning up nothing. At least, it was turning up nothing until he looked at the Red Door. 

Richmond’s room, of course! How could he have forgotten? All of the air conditioning units were down there. A small bathroom and some paper towels, too. Oh, it was perfect. Too good to be true. Casting one last nervous look back over to Jen’s office, he grabbed Roy’s arm and dragged him up, pulling him over to the door. He looked around once more before wrenching the door open, shoving Roy inside and quickly following before anyone could see. 

Richmond, unfortunately, was not in his room. Normally Moss would have been rather glad of that, but he could have used some help with Roy. He forced his boyfriend to sit down on the chair that was sitting rather ominously in the middle of the room, before disappearing into the little bathroom. He reappeared a minute or so later armed with a stack of wet paper towels. 

“Put your head forward a bit,” he said in his most commanding voice. Roy giggled and smirked a little, making Moss roll his eyes, but did as he was told. “Thank you. This might be cold.” 

As gently as he could, he reached forward and put one of the wet paper towels on the back of Roy’s neck. The Irishman let out a strange high-pitched squeal, a sound of the like of which Moss had never heard him make before. A pang of guilt shot through his stomach. “Sorry,” he murmured. 

Over the next quarter of an hour, Roy seemed to come back to himself. For Moss it was an agonising wait, not least because he’d left his phone upstairs. He sat in every position possible: against the wall, by the side of the routers, right under the aircon, right in front of Roy’s chair. In the end he dragged the chair he’d seen in the other room and had sat opposite Roy, his legs hanging over the back of the chair and his hair brushing the floor. It kind of hurt, but it was strangely comfortable at the same time. 

“Wait, why are we down here?” Roy asked all of a sudden. Moss opened his eyes, looking up at him. “Why are you sat like that? What?” 

“Your fever was too high,” Moss said, twisting around to sit upright. “I had to get it down.” 

“What about Jen? She’ll notice that we’ve gone. Why didn’t you just leave it!?” 

Moss opened his mouth to say something, but then seemed to think better of it and shut it again. He shrugged, pressing his lips together and looking away. 

“How do you feel?” he asked quietly. Roy glared at him again, reaching for the paper towel on the back of his neck and throwing it on the ground. 

“Shit, Moss,” he said. “I feel shit. My head hurts-- actually, my whole body hurts-- and I can’t breathe through my nose, not to mention the fact I feel like I’m boiling alive.” 

“Sorry,” Moss replied, his voice still quiet. Roy’s face softened a little and he reached forward, but just as he did Moss got up from the chair, moving back towards the door. “Shall we go back upstairs then?” 

Roy coughed again and nodded. 

***

When they got back to the basement, Jen was waiting for them at the door. Her arms were folded across her chest and she was tapping her foot, giving them both a critical look. They both looked guiltily at their shoes. 

“So, where have you two been?” she asked sweetly. They both mumbled a little, shrugging. “You know I’m going to find out anyway.” She turned to Moss, a sweet little shit-eating grin on her face. Roy gulped nervously. “Moss? Mind telling me what you and Roy were doing in Richmond’s room?” 

The two of them watched as Moss  _ umm _ -ed and  _ ahh _ -ed, staring straight down at the ground and not looking either of them in the eye. He kept shifting his weight from one foot to the other. 

“We were, um...” he mumbled, trailing off. “We were, er...” 

“You were...?” Jen prompted. There was silence for a few moments, and then--

“We were having sex!” 

Jen recoiled a little. Roy goggled at his boyfriend. Moss was staring at the ground, biting his lip. He glanced quickly at his boyfriend before looking straight back to his shoes. 

“Roy?” Jen asked, turning to the Irishman.  _ Shit,  _ he thought,  _ she’s asking me now _ . “Is this...” 

“Yep,” he said, nodding way too much. Pain stabbed at his temples, but he did his best to ignore it. “Yeah, we were down there just--” 

Jen made a noise as she held her hand up, closing her eyes and looking away. She shook her head. 

“Alright, I get it, thank you,” she said. She shook her head again, turning away from them and running into her office. As soon as the door slammed shut Roy turned to Moss and punched him as hard as he could in the arm. 

“Ow!” Moss exclaimed, holding his arm and giving Roy a hurt look. 

“We were having  _ sex _ !?” Roy hissed, glaring at him. Moss looked away to the side. “You really couldn’t think of  _ anything  _ else!?” 

“I’m sorry, I panicked!” Moss whispered fiercely back. “That’s still no reason to  _ attack  _ me!” 

“I didn’t attack you, you’re just--” 

They both fell quiet as Jen’s office door opened and she poked her head out. They looked over at her. She opened her mouth, looked at them, shut it, opened it again, made a strange noise then closed it, shook her head and went back into her office. The boys let out a sigh of relief. 

The rest of the afternoon passed as smoothly as it could. As time went on, the food colouring started to fade away and it became more and more obvious that Roy was ill. Jen stayed in her office, Moss nursed his bruised arm (which he showed to Roy as he angrily said “you  _ know  _ I bruise easily!”, making Roy roll his eyes and promise to make up for it) and Roy tried to ignore anyone and everyone. 

Keeping the fact that Roy was ill from Jen was getting more and more difficult, especially now the coughing and sneezing fits had set in. The most sneezes in a row, currently, was twenty-seven. Moss had been keeping count. He just wished he’d got a video of it, he was fairly sure that was a new world record. Plus, the two of them were entirely oblivious to the way Jen kept watching them through her office window. 

Eventually, at around 3:30, it all became too much for Jen. Roy was looking worse with every passing minute, and nobody was getting any work done anyway. Straightening out her jacket, she stood up as tall as she could and marched into the office. 

“Roy, I know you’re sick,” she announced. The boys looked up at her in panic. 

“W-wha-a-a-a-at?” Roy stammered, chuckling nervously. “What are you talking about? I’m  _ fine _ .” 

“Cut the crap,” Jen said. Roy fell quiet, nodding. “And I know the two of you weren’t having sex in Richmond’s room. You weren’t, were you?” 

The two of them shook their heads. She allowed herself to chuckle a little. 

“Look, Roy, go home,” she said, her voice soft. Roy sat up and shook his head, opening his mouth to speak. Jen held up her hand. “I’ll straighten it all out, don’t worry.” She turned to Moss. “Go with him, Moss. Make sure he’s okay.” 

“I will,” Moss said with a small smile. He turned back to his boyfriend. “Come on. I just got the complete Star Wars Blu-Ray set!”

As Jen watched them go, she knew that they were going to be just fine together.

**Author's Note:**

> i really hope you enjoyed this!! please leave comments and kudos, they make me so happy! thank you for reading :)
> 
> stay safe and happy, y'all xx


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